Deathlessness And Our Best Poker Faces
by gDeIpVhIrNoEtt
Summary: Two-shot, 21st-Century TeenageModel/Actor!AU. Yaoi, but no smut. "They think I'm completely scared but I actually wanna try again." Ironic summer storms, feelings that can't be vacuumed, stars aligned, mismatch and misunderstanding of intentions, masking love with mistakes, reality and not miracles, aerial views you've fought for and earned, having loved, lost and loved again.
1. Preface

All right. Who would've known I could actually get around to writing for such a...what should I say...elite ship? XD Quite ironic how sephesis/gephiroth was the ship that got me into yaoi, but it took me like 2 years to actually write for it.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated, but I would like it if you PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE PROCEEDING. This is not to make you fall asleep but to ensure a well...proper understanding of the gibberish I am about to present.

Warnings and advice: Firstly, if you've been reading my longer works (hahaha if people like these exist, please know you have my sincerest thanks) you'll already be familiar with my persistent knack for writing my fanfics like they're my original novels. Please do not complain about Gen and Seph holding no semblance whatsoever to the original Gen and Seph. And as for the mandatory sephesis angst and conflict...all of that is dumped in the 2nd part, so if you could just kindly wait.

And I know us Sephesis readers and authors are the pickiest and most judgmental and most critical. If you don't like my characterization, no one is stopping you from pressing the x button. Yes, I am quite aware that Sephiroth is the most emotionally-stinted one out of all of them but please there is something called creative license.

Second, I know writing Sephesis without smut is just...it's unheard of. It's final, there is absolutely NO smut in here even if it's a clear yaoi relationship. Hang on for the 2nd part and they get to kiss.

Third, if you're still reading this I'm assuming you are going to give this fic a go - I would like to explain some points to clarify prior confusion. This is written in Seph's point of view, a late-teenage model who, I'll just say, can read people quite well and is very anxious of the world around him as a result of it. _Text in left-italic are his thoughts_ , **text in bold are Genesis'**. Genesis has been in the same model gigs as Seph and is about to pursue a musical acting career. He's written a play called LOVELESS and this won him a scholarship to a big acting school. Sef has had a very traumatic experience with relationships for the past two years (Aerith here is a guy called Aer) and is just emerging at the end of..you can say recovery. He's at a point in his life when he has to decide what to do: to stay in the past or look towards the future. Both characters are at the point after the harshest tests of their lives, and they get to know a "victorious" version of each other.

 _Text in center italic are Seph's flashbacks, or Seph and Gen's thoughts._

Fourth: "Gdeiph, omggg is that you? What happened to your writing style?" I know. I know. Yes, it is me, gdeiph and yes, my writing style...well, complete makeover would be the appropriate word.

That should be enough to clarify formatting and voice confusions. I most certainly hope (if the looooooooong intro notes haven't bored you yet or scared you away) that you enjoy this quite rebellious Sephesis fic. I know it's really renegade. Any feedback, kudos, favs, comments, criticism are welcome and much loved. Even just a view of my fic makes me so grateful. I am really grateful to all my readers, favers and commenters.

This is quite an atypical relationship story, to be honest. As opposed to the "meant for each other, but stars not aligned" we usually see, this is "stars aligned but not meant for each other". I didn't write this fic alone. Thank you so much to my aniki, who discussed this with me for hours and helped me clarify the details of every single memory. Mountains and mountains of thanks to my previous English teacher who totally gave me backbone to write successfully-structured plot-based stories and who picked me up when I was on the verge of giving up this effort and supporting me tremendously. Forever grateful to Raben, my partner-in-crime who always has the time to sin with me.

And to one particular male specimen in my life who will never ever ever ever see this fic as long as I'm alive, I wouldn't be able to have written this without you. Yes, I know that you will murder me in a bathtub the moment you see this, and no I am still not changing my mind.


	2. Part 1

Waves crashing on wounded shore, breaking sand apart once the water's realized it's the sand and not the rocks it can actually move.

 _I sent wishes to the stars and sky_

 ** _But now you'll look to the reality that's actually the substance of your world;  
The earth and just how piercing plainness actually is. _**

**_You kissed him with your eyes closed and your soul  
getting sucked in so-called cliché galaxies  
So now it's going to be different with me _**

_Because I will keep my eyes open, I will fight back the blinks._

 _This time, I will keep my eyes open. Yes, the whole time.  
With you, there is definitely no need for things as mundane as blinking. The world, I will drink in – I will not succumb to it anymore. _

_I love you because I've known you since the dawn of time  
I have waited for god knows how long, for you to double my lonely hand _

**_And I came into your life to violate every single law and expectation you've held._**

 _No more steady streams. No more clear paths of stars. No more perfections,  
no more "perfect pieces that will make you whole".  
And definitely no more need for wings spread afar from blissful heavens. _

**_You will brave unchartered currents. And you will rock them. Rock n' Roll._**

 _But with you, I've lost the need to breathe. I do not need to be human. I do not need to be perfect.  
I have no more need for heroes. I do not need salvation.  
I do not ever need to take air from the world to live anymore. _

_I prayed to snow, to bring any piece, any remnant, any flicker of his soul back.  
back to me. I know snow doesn't answer prayers of vengeance,  
but still I always insisted. _

**_And hello, it's summer now. You won't be feeling any of the heat you hate  
Just kiss me._**

-0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

Dubai. Let me coin you the key phrase – it's the city where people come and go. This city is just rad crazy about it. It's said that it takes a whole ocean and a moon cycle to erase a person's footprints on the sand, but even if everything encompassed in Dubai's plane are practically built on sand – that even skyscrapers loom from dirt and that's how they kiss the clear desert sky - I met you at wooden-tiled floors. conversed with you staring at the ceiling, making up its cracks in my head. kissed you standing on concrete and asphalt and dirt.

That's the first law that you violated, so coolly.

And this is how you hit me: solid reality that's too badass for miracles (man, you got me there).  
It was the most significant promise, already ironic by itself 'cause the mere idea of it is already a miracle.  
optical illusions, the deep and detailed ones. eyes that actually held gazes so meaningfully – as meaningfully as I did, and that is how I knew your hands are the type that would never really let go.

Then there's more: thick black ink, a turbulent ocean, the stillness of night stars, etc. The most memorable? Holding my anxiety steady, you teaching me inactivity's calming serenade. That

 ** _frankly, Sef? Things are going to be quite fine._**

 _And that frankly, you will make me love again_. even after everything that's happened, even if I've learned to shut myself down at emotion's first ghost-whisper and _even if the mere concept of love has already shattered me over and over again_ until

 ** _Just take the risk for me_**

It was the 2015 Leather Issue walk a bit back in February – Dubai's winter is dry yet whipping, and still this isn't the weather I associate you with. There's me asking for Viks to calm my nerves down and bluntly speaking it was almost quite stupid of me to ask you for a balm of it back then. You're sitting coolly in a corner, the tedious this-is-taking-forever makeup stage already bypassed. If "coolly" meant being able to hold your turbulent ocean waves and trapping them amidst your smalty eyes – _because man, they are a serious spectacle_ , _do you even know that they're museum material?_ – then we're set.

 _We will be the best canvas_ , you say. I don't really think on how badly phrased of a sentence it is because I immediately knew what you meant. No one questions what Genesis Rhapsodos, the star of this runway, says. You're just practically part-timing in these model shows because your fates in talent are actually tied to acting and musicals. _And yet you steal the whitest stars. If you're already a die-for here, I think you'd blow up Broadway then._

 _Broadway is not my thing, I'm more of the discreet-stuff dude_ , you say. You're so comfortable and natural and beautiful in your own skin, be it dark leopard coat or skimpy flingy net-shirt you parade in. Not in the cocky, confident-asshole manner, but the _I honestly don't give a flying shit about what anyone thinks of me_ degree _._

You bluntly refuse to lend me your Viks balm, telling me that it's better to run the walk nervous. That way, emotion will simmer from me. _Channel nervousness to brilliance, this is my secret_ – you whispered.

 _But now it's not one anymore_ , I note in my head. Your maelstromic (yet subdued) eyes contest to the shadow room's dimness, which is something that doesn't happen really easily.

I congratulate you on your acceptance to Scuola di Leonardo da Vinci. You smile reservedly, and I immediately know you're holding so many searing emotions back even if your smile spectrums from your eyes to your lungs. if it can ever be contained in the first place. _Like me_.

Then in pre-runway chilling, there's you trying to saunter backwards with Anje, metallic-blue fedora somehow softening the smalt in your eyes. casting this nice shadow on your cheekbones that I still can't really blink away even now. With Zachary messing with the practice strobe lights, you messing around, cheeky grins and dandy flicks of your wrists and your head thrown back as your rich laughter makes this room 100% less boring – maybe I could swear that ocean waves flicker from your collarbones. then break on the sheer white prep-room walls

but when I blink, they're already all over the place. their conquest extends to the dimensions of my heart, if that was something that could actually be grasped.

It just seems like only I can sense them and see them like this, your waves.

It's been around six months since then. Impressions turn over completely, even if I knew at first glance that you're more crushed velvet than splinted armor. beautifully-priceless aerugos on the surface, aeroliths between cloth ready to shoot up at their wake. Maybe I have to respect your choice of self-portrayal in public, but I don't fall for the automatic façade. You see, I have my masks as well.

And I was pretty sure that I could see through yours. Not because I was trying hard, but because I _understood_.

 _With you, there is no need for poetry  
No need for ink to be beatified with watercolor spills  
There are no accidental romanticisms,  
no interludes hanging onto the last syllables  
and definitely no accompanying tears_

 ** _Because let's be real  
Truth itself alone is already at its most quintessential _**

-0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

This summer is the driest and most oppressive. All inhabitants of Dubai are united in one common cause – the simple gesture of thanking central air conditioning one million times a day. Without it, we'd all be dying of heatstroke. The skyscrapers won't be, though.

I'm soaking in the tub, one million angle ideas jarring through my planned peace as usual. sitting still, barely indulging the temptation to draw ripples with my fingers. There's an assembly line of strobe light-water-fusion sets my brain is concocting in fuzzes and all of a sudden I remember just how much I love split-light portraits. How much they suit me, even though it's supposedly perfect for masculine faces and not my leaning-more-to-feminine one.

Gridelin lips still downy even with waterdrop mosaics clinging to them, white lamp-light from behind my left and the rest is just all science, really. Maybe my eyes still fight between darting around and observing themselves more closely, about how amorphous late 16 is still not the perfect age for modelling. _Sef love, your eyes have an out-of-this-galaxy shape to kill for, but I have to adjust the shades way too often_ , Chelsea always tells me.

I take nine selfies, three of which I deem okay. One shows my throbbing neck veins like it's one of those provocatively-romantic subjects you'd focus on in Creative Writing class. Surely, I'm fighting back the urge to vomit at the thought. _Do not romanticize the thought of needing someone, you're just being an asshole that way._

Waterdrop mosaics: eyelashes trying to flutter to my upper-cheekbones, I don't notice that I send my files to the wrong recipient. I later hiss out a half-hearted curse to this lagging phone, but I'll say again that it's only half-hearted. because even the intimidating

" _Tilt the lamp a little more to your left and raise your chin a little bit more as well_ ," message showing up on the chat head that afternoon was totally worth the half-embarrassment. Again, it's just half.

There's certainly the predominant embarrassment. Predominant intimidation and even more predominant admiration translates to the tub water as my free hand dashes one million reciprocating ripples. " _I'm sorry for this, wrong recipient_."  
And there's always this prime thought - your inescapable smalty sapphire refuses to die down, even between the letters' pixels onscreen.

And the fact that you're the only person in my life so far that I actually find intimidating keeps rubbing itself on my face way too smugly.

" _Don't worry about it, no problem_ ," it's not the last reassurance packs you would ever give me.

 _It's beyond a possibility and definitely stronger of a sureness  
Let's get to know each other, and not just the plain each other  
The you and the me in the present  
No fancy words_

 ** _Because even silence will suffice  
No more crashing down in episodes,  
no more drowning in miasmas you can't escape from_**

 ** _There is only living_**

 _There is only being here_

School is two weeks away, about ten in the seventeen hours that I'm awake consumed by portrait freelancing. Gigs won't start until early October and August is way too harrowing and slow. But it's perfect for practice and sharpening and honing skills, getting more of my angles straighter and sharper. I quickly learn that you're up three hours earlier than me, and you're awake for four to five less hours out of my seventeen.

You tell me about the play you wrote that got you into S.d.L.d.V, how you wanted to change its title, LOVELESS to something more substantial – and then I somehow managed to get an elaboration out of you. even if asked, I already knew that by "substantial", you were fishing for a title that you actually believed in.

"I don't really believe in a Gift of the Goddess, I don't think well of things like luck and wishes," you tell me. The IM chathead is just shamefully too shabby for your grandiosity. But mind, it's not the over-the-top kind… "But there is fate," at that moment, there's a flicker and two flickers and three flickers that shimmy their way into my personal subspace.

Maybe I took some time to type in a sophisticated reply, because it hits me again – how I talk nonstop about feelings. how people think I am this emotionally-stinted dude even when I pick up on people's emotions so easily that it scares me. how I think nonstop about other people's feelings whether I understand them or not. how I'm trying to bury the disgusting memory of how my therapist just stared at me as if I was an alien he needed to run away from.

 _Just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I can't feel shit._

I scroll down the rest of your script. It's not poetry but it's not prose, either – and the manifestation of its truthfulness, sincerity and intensity in this plane of the universe are your eyes. Nevermind that I can't see them behind the phone screen, it's just that _I don't need to see them for them to be there._

You send me a selfie – you're in the trampoline park and you ask me to come over. _There are actually fun things to do in Dubai during summer, eh._ I've already picked up on the fact that you abhor typing and you'd rather speak when it's about _substantial_ topics like your scripts. "I barely come out of my room," I know your eyebrows raise a bit at this, even if you're guilty of it to an approximately similar amount.

"I'm trying to see how small catchlight can be without my portrait looking retarded."

"Cool," you say. "Can we Skype?"

"So that the screen will hang and lag because of how much you're jumping and jumping and jumping now? I'd rather type," I seriously felt like I was out-sassing the Sass God.

"That's fine with me. And you should jump on trampolines, it's stress relief," your replies are coming on a bit slower.

"How many times have you dropped your phone now?"

"Nah," the smugness is already there, "I have a strong grip."

"I do jump hurdles," I offer. You make me smile a lot – and it's not that cheeky fairy-land magic curve. It's not the nice-friendship talk thing. Second law you violate coolly: a smile is just a smile. Let it be.

0o0oo0o0o0o0o0

Sure, I'm supremely intrigued about getting to know you better. I wonder if you know that the quality of lightning isn't just luminosity – that it's a desperate, brilliant discharge of great energies. Thinking back to your thunder-rhythmic mosey even when you're barefoot, I consider that you do. We don't have that much conversations yet but the illumination is there.

I decide that you speak in the language of lightning.

Slow and empty countdown to school: there's me posing questions about you as you're warming up your voice. while you're script-reading out of boredom. after you're just so mentally drained and don't want to see sequences ever again and then in no time you're up and about with your brilliance again. The answers you give me are unexpected, the kind that fills in the gaps in me: not the ones that were incomplete in plain sight, but the ones that I've forgotten about.

You prefer live runway shows and I liked browsing in magazines and ogling photobook scans.

Then one 11:49 P.M. loungy chat as I'm concocting some half-hearted braid lying down, maybe things pick up some progression. I ask you how you live down bad communications with the photographer.

"Fool around, do some more gigs and you'll realize that screw-ups are the shots that were meant to be there."

"Yeah right, given that I don't look stupid," there's the unexplainable urge to do some pushups, and I abandon my braid attempt. It's just that the positive energy shifted to my widening smile, maybe.

"Stolen shots," you add, "They're like kisses. Honest."

 _Kisses._

 _Purest emerald eyes, and again I am lost  
I'm the one who braves cupping your face  
but I'm the one mesmerized _

_The sensation is complicated  
and the butterflies in my stomach  
puts my lips to shame when they touch yours_

 _Again, I am the one who's lost  
Again, this is just another dream  
Again, I wake up _

_He was just a dream, Aer was just a dream, feelings about Aer are not real, Aer is dead, just fucking get over him already – it's been two fucking years now_ , the safety mantra keeping my mental stability in check drones and drones and drones and drones. _Get back to reality, Sef. Gen is having a nice, cozy chat with you. Enjoy it._

So I do it again, swallowing down and crushing the attack on crag as best as possible. _This is what I do best. Pretend, pretend, pretend like nothing is happening._

 _It's all right, Gen doesn't know anything. You don't have to be weak, you don't have to be the weak person you know.._

"You sound like those guys who have impressive kissing resumes. And no, I didn't mean to say you were cheap or anything," I type. By now, the lights are off and there's only my phone – you on the mysterious, intriguing receiving end and me, trying to juggle my many faces. It's inexplicably relieving how I know I can be honest with my words and you won't be judging me.

"Haha, I know," it's really interesting how you never type lol. "Would you like one?"

"Like a what?"

"A kiss," there's a hectic question racing through my head, albeit quickly silenced by your intensity. your realness. the sheer I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck-it's-just-a-word-don't-make-a-big-deal-out-of-it, chill standpoint of it that you have. And of course, the automatic accompanying barrage of analytical questions because my brain is the nosiest creature I know: you're a pretty guarded person, I'm pretty sure you're very selective with the people you kiss? I'm more than sure, or correct me if I'm wrong, you're not asking me this out of curiosity, are you? Or is it that there's someone you're trying so hard to forget but can't, like I am? Kisses are the link to love that's broken you, aren't they? You've just barely made it out of a fire with your sanity intact, and at the moment I'm the only one available to admit this to, hmm?

 ** _Are you scarred like me? Does everyone find you insane?_**

 _Was love an unspeakable trauma to you as well?_

I can't deny I was growing a bit more uncomfortable. But I needed to let you talk about how you feel, because being able to do that is something that makes the world less of an overwhelming place.

"No," I'm just grateful that we're not discussing this in a café or the road or any physical proximity. Teetering calmness, anxiety bubbling, merciless taunts…they're cancelled out, and there's comfortable borderline-darkness warming me. connecting us. _I'm sure we're both at the same place right now, even if we arrived here from different roads._ "How do they feel?"

"Artless. Natural," you're taking on a new voice. "It's not really that much of a big deal," your replies are coming on faster, but the darkness of my room vacuities my reeling 75%-discomfort.

"I regret saving my first. They feel amazing, you know. Happens naturally, you'll just feel through it."

"I see," discomfort heightens to 90%, but so does curiosity and intrigue and sheer interest that overtakes it by a 110%. "How many have you given?"

"Not much, contrary to popular belief," there's a melancholic mixture of sadness and laughter that reaches my screen, "The modelling agency and our group thinks I'm such a slut and not at the same time, haha."

"I don't think you are."

"Hahaha. Once with an ex, and there were unproblematic shorts – hookups, I mean. Unproblematic was the sweetest part of it. I guarantee you, it's worth it."

"The hookups? Or the kisses?" I figured there's no point trying to silence anything, not that I'd ever want not to hear what you had to say.

"The kisses. It's worth it. When you're done, you'll regret saving it." _You're talking to yourself, aren't you? The you in the past with lots of regrets…_

"So yea, wanna do it with me?"

"Hang on, you're gay?"

"Aren't we all? Haha..I don't give a fuck about your opinion.."

"I am, too."

"Haha, why aren't you answering?"

"Gen…I'm actually saving it for someone.." _it's not entirely a lie, even if it's closer to a pathetically-heartbreaking denial. It's not entirely a wish, even if the truth was already thrown at my face a long time ago: Aer is not even going to come back.._

"That's fine with me. I was only asking just in case you wanted." A meaningful sigh. The darkness ripples, softens, softens, softens.. "It's not like sex or anything…now that's something that really means a lot."

"That's something I agree with. And I believe that's how I find a real friend, when we share that same belief. It's more of a powerful emotion rather than a conviction."

"So..you aren't changing your mind? About a kiss? We could easily do it, you know. It will be over before you know it."

"What do you think kisses mean?" _Let's gamble for a time stop. I want to help you now, Gen. I want to mend whatever's broken in you, even if it's only for a short while. I'm not the one who can heal you maybe, but I can make you more comfortable with it.._

"What a beautiful question, haha…" are you dancing right now? You sound like you are. Or are you fighting back tears, perhaps punching the wall? I presume both. "I don't think I can answer it."

"I can't, either." _And I can't bring myself to end this conversation, either. I'm not scared, even though I feel like I should be._ I knew you thought about my question really hard. Really, really, hard.

"Well, if you change your mind…message me any time. I just wanted to know." _This sounds like those lame pickup attempts in fanfics…but for some reason, the fact that you're the one saying it –_

 _Enough, enough. Cut it off, you're saying unnecessary crap now, Sef._

"I won't, don't worry." My room's darkness lights up with one million questions, not stars. They're actually quite magnificent in the fascinating kind of way. As we both agree on goodnight, ashes and tears aren't adust; neither are they the pitiful blend of sorry.

 _We're just being ourselves, minus the detriment. Minus the self-criticism and obliterating all the regrets._

0o0oo0o0o0o0o0

There's more and more reason to keep waking up early – the invigorating spark, the priceless motivation I just get from the realization that there's actually someone in the UAE who doesn't start their day at 2pm. I lazily rub the sleep off my eyes while scrolling down my tumblr:

[There are colors created by accidental placement of panes of glass and glass bottles, but you know they're meant to be seen]

Last night is still the intriguing kind of surreal: peeping into a cannon, only to be surprised with a kaleidoscopic view. This factoid validates and testifies to what happened and what we discussed, and before I scoff the thought away I tell myself, _yes, Sef – it has everything to do with you._

I scroll further, this time much, much, much more awake.

[Color is very difficult to cancel out; even objects that have been painted a single hue of opaque color undergo color changes as the light varies from moment to moment.]  
You, Genesis Rhapsodos, are an ever-changing mystery. And when the chat head pops up and you've messaged, "Sef, I'm really sorry about last night. Just read our convo now. I was really drunk," I try to decide which version of you I like more: the "drunk" (even though I'm not convinced by your excuse nor am I buying it) one or the sober one.

 _It's not your fault, love has broken me too – Thank you for trusting me enough with your feelings – You were having a hard time and needed to say all of that – I knew I wasn't the person you needed to be with last night, and I also knew that I wasn't the one you were aching to kiss – Who was it? – You trusted me enough to show that side of you? Or were you just screwing around? -_ I push all of these reply ideas away. "No problem," I manage, "it's perfectly fine. You didn't say anything wrong."

You, Genesis Rhapsodos, are an ever-changing mystery. When you're drunk I can't reach you, even if you're more open as hell. The next morning you're a different person, but this is not necessarily a bad re-angle. I know better than to bring up how different angles of the same model does inexplicable wonders.

"Thanks."

"So you're just passing the time till your flight?" _I don't care about last night, the mandatory-awkwardness of aftermath is totally not getting in the way of our friendship._

"Yep. If not experimenting with angles and browsing around, I just go fencing…or just working out. Yea, I have a little less than two weeks to laze around. Thing is, I don't laze around."

"You like sparring too? I'm more into kendo, though." And so on. Maybe two or three days pass with me focusing-unfocusing shots for fun. binge-rewatching the Korean version of Dracula – captivation never dulled out when you're talking about Xiah's voice. On the day I routine-dye half of my hair black, things with you pick up again.

 _And again that was how I knew your hands are the type that would never let go.  
And again that was how I knew your hands are the type that would never let go.  
And again that was how I knew your hands are the type that would never let go. _

You are kilometers away from me. I do not see your face, I barely estimate the imaginary tone of your voice whenever you message. Honestly, I freak out a little inside because I can't judge whether you're saying your lines with a smile or if you want me to shut up. It's a bit disconcerting – I've always preferred face-to-face meetings and conversations even if I gave you the opposite impression.

You agree.

 _The eyes are everything_

 ** _The eyes are indeed everything._**

"Want to play a game with me?" I'm peeling off my facial mask when you ask me, getting ready to shower. It's late at night, but I never really did care.

"Billiards? A spar?"

"Haha, no. Icebreaker."

"Don't you have to take care of your hands? You're a fencer, aren't you?"

 _shy beginnings, bringing a bowl of berries to bed._

"Hahaha, Icebreaker is sort of a truth and dare game. Except that it's all truth, and no dare…played by daring friends to make each other feel really…well you could say uncomfortable."

 _rain-sensitive windshield wipers, keeping on nodding terms with the person you used to be_

Maybe this would be this summer's spectacle. Since Gen's the one who proposed this, it took away the teenage-girl-game feel of it, to be honest. To be honest, I'm intrigued enough. To be honest this feels like being able to unlock doors that were barred just a few minutes ago. To be honest this is a game, be it turning out a simple pastime or a fiery clash of heads and wills and whatnot – I immediately know this is a game I'd love to play with Gen. And only Gen.

 _bringing a bowl of berries to bed_. Maybe that's how this feels right now. "Sure, why not." My gut strongly reports this is just the beginning of what he really intends.

I decide to ride along, anyway.

"Tomorrow night, perhaps?"

"Deal."

That night, I think about tropical birds that have all six pure colors on their coats. Predominant darkness to impressive bouts of light, as your mood goes from 0 to 100 and 100 to 0 in fractions of a second. Maybe we're raising withered branches up, making masterpieces out of bitter leftovers. using Flower Shell shotguns to plant flowers in the most badass way known to man so far. Maybe this is more glitzy than your unbelievable fedoras and the onslaught of designer clothing on our picturesque bodies.


End file.
